Honors
Overview
The Elizabethtown College Honors Program, established in 1999 and sponsored by The Hershey Company, reflects the College’s commitment to providing hand-crafted learning opportunities for its students. In the case of the Honors Program, the focus of this handcrafting is on students with excellent academic records, superior academic abilities, intellectual promise, and demonstrated initiative. Consistent with the mission of the College, the Honors Program seeks to promote high standards of scholarship, leadership, and service among those students selected for the program. Class size deliberately is kept small in order to allow for more individualized attention to students.
The opportunity to work closely with faculty mentors from the first year to the senior year is an explicit goal of everyone associated with the program. In order to foster even greater involvement between faculty scholars and Honors students, co-curricular activities are an integral part of the program. Study abroad and international travel are strongly encouraged.
To facilitate such experiences, the Elizabethtown College Honors Program allows each qualified student to apply for an Academic Research Grant that can be used in support of international travel, senior thesis research, graduate and professional exams such as the GRE, LSAT, or MCAT, or for partial tuition coverage for taking courses during non-traditional semesters of Winter Online, May Term, and Summer Online at Elizabethtown College. In order to help foster a deeper sense of community, study rooms, a reserved lounge, and a computer lab are located in the Honors Center for Honors student use.
Honors Program students in good standing will have priority registration for each semester for which they are members of the Honors Program. Priority registration indicates that Honors Program students will have the opportunity to register before other students with the same class standing, though RBI courses are occasionally exceptions in this regard.
For more information, please visit www.etown.edu/honors.
Admissions Process
Admission to the Elizabethtown College Honors Program is competitive. For current admission requirements, please visit our website at etown.edu/programs/honors or contact the Office of Admissions at admissions@etown.edu.
All applicants to the college are automatically reviewed for the honors program. Students that meet the criteria will be invited to interview.
A limited number of current Elizabethtown College students may be considered for the honors program after their first semester. These students must demonstrate excellence in their coursework, provide a recommendation from at least one Elizabethtown professor, and have the concurrence of the Honors Director. After the first semester, such applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Participation Requirements
Students entering the Elizabethtown College Honors Program in their first academic year take an Honors First-Year Seminar, and usually an Honors English course. In the sophomore/junior years, Honors students ordinarily take three additional Honors courses from the College’s Core Program or in majors, minors, or electives. The final capstone Honors experience is the completion of a Senior Honors Thesis. A total of 24 credits must be acquired in Honors courses in order to fulfill the requirements and graduate as a recognized Elizabethtown College Honors Scholar. In order to remain in good standing within the program, students must maintain a grade point average of 3.50 overall.
In line with the Honors Program’s motto – Learn, Serve, and Lead, Honors students are required to record their 15 hours of volunteer service, community engagement, and leadership each year throughout their undergraduate education. Upon completion of their annual 15-hour co-curricular requirement, all Honors students are required to submit a log of those activities as well as a 3-4 page double-spaced reflection paper on their co-curricular activities on a yearly basis.
A list of Honors courses is available through the course descriptions tab of this Catalog. Define the search criterion as an “HON” in the “Code” field or select a specific Honors “Type” shown in the drop-down menu. All Honors courses are noted on course schedules with an “H” at the beginning of the course code and “HNR” at the beginning of the title.
The Honors Program offers the following courses:
HON 201 - HNR WCH Elizabethtown History: Campus and Community (PHS 201)
HON 204 - HNR WCH The Politics of Historical Preservation in Lancaster County
HON 205 - HNR HUM Leadership Theory and Personal Narrative
HON 246 - HNR HUM Refugees in Global and Regional Context (PS 246, INT 246)
HON 301 - HNR Thesis Preparation
HON 480-484 - HNR Independent Study
HON 490 - HNR Capstone Directed Research Project
The following Core and disciplinary Honors courses are offered. Other Honors courses may be offered from time to time. See individual Schools for course descriptions.
HEC 101 - HNR SSC Principles of Economics
HEN 100 - HNR PLE Writing and Language
HEN 165 - HNR CE Introduction to Creative Writing
HHE 305 - HNR Conditions and Implications for Occupational Performance
HHI 209 - HNR WCH Nineteenth Century Europe
HHI 210 - HNR WCH Twentieth Century Europe
HIC 206 - HNR NCH/SSC Middle East Politics
HJA 245 - HNR NCH From Anime to Zen: Japanese Society, Business & Culture
HMA 251 - HNR MA Probability and Statistics
HMA 275 - HNR CE Mathematics in Music
HNE 125 - HNR NPS Introduction to Neuroscience
HPC 105 - HNR SSC Introduction to Psychology
HSO 224 - HNR SSC The Amish in Modern Society
For more information, contact the Director of the Honors Program, Dr. Oya Dursun-Ozkanca.
Momentum
The Office of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs is home to the Momentum Program. In 2010, Elizabethtown College was awarded a grant from the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) through the Walmart Foundation’s Walmart College Success Awards program, to enhance the success of first-generation college students. With the grant, the College established the Momentum program with an interdisciplinary approach to introducing students to the liberal arts curriculum and helping them prepare for the academic expectations of college.
The program was called Momentum because the purpose is to help students build momentum toward their academic experience and college life. The program establishes a momentum, which students maintain throughout their time at the college. Momentum is designed to prepare students for college, assisting them in their effort to get the most from their education and become an integral part of the college community. The Momentum program is a stimulus for students to become energized about Elizabethtown College and to help them maintain this energy, motion, and activity throughout their college experience.
The Momentum Program works with students throughout their first year and sophomore year in attaining their academic and professional goals, career and graduate school preparation, financial literacy, cultural enrichment, leadership development, and community. Momentum connects students with faculty, professional staff, administrators, and alumni who have been or would have been in the Momentum program and who understand what Momentum students need. Momentum students are agents of change, working toward equity, social justice, and peacemaking.
Momentum Students:
- Learn how college works
- Gain support for academic, personal and professional goals/aspirations
- Connect with a team of Momentum juniors and seniors
- Connect with peer academic advisors who have shared experiences
- Receive coaching for building strengths and finding purpose as a leader
- Experience unique opportunities to give back and contribute to the campus and local community
Momentum students are also supported by upper class student academic peer advisors known as the Kinesis—the energy behind a momentum. Each Momentum student is assigned a Kinesis Peer Academic Advisor, a junior or senior who is majoring and/or minoring in a similar academic program. This student advisor gets to know new Momentum students, understand their academic goals and personal ambitions, and is with the First Year and Sophomore Momentum student every step of their academic journey. The advisor is their “go to” person.
First generation students who have earned at least 30 credit/semester hours and have a cumulative GPA of 3.20 can be inducted into the Elizabethtown college Pi Chapter of Tri-Alpha, a national honors society.
For more information, please visit www.etown.edu/programs/momentum.
Prestigious Scholarships and Fellowships
The Prestigious Scholarships and Fellowships program encourages high-achieving students to pursue nationally competitive scholarships best reflecting their academic interests and post-graduate aspirations. Competitive scholarships and fellowships awards are often substantial, and recipients and finalists are held in a high esteem by educational institutions and employers. Scholarships and fellowships can range from short-term summer courses to multi-year graduate programs throughout the world. The application process offers certain benefits in improved critical thinking, analytical writing, and oral presentation skills- all of which can be usefully applied in nearly any future pursuit. The Office of Prestigious Scholarships and Fellowships, located in the Honors Center, aims to demystify these opportunities and help students discern the most appropriate awards for which to apply. We introduce students to opportunities, resources, and plenty of practical advice to helping them put together a competitive application. Whatever questions they have about prestigious scholarships and fellowships, we are eager to help students explore the possibilities they represent and encourage them in the application process. From the initial inquiry, to the nomination and selection stage of a national or international competition, we work with students and alumni to prepare competitive applications.
For more information, please visit www.etown.edu/programs/fellowships.
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